


Biscuits and Wine

by Jenny_Starseed



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Addiction, Alcoholism, Angst, F/F, Femslash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-15
Updated: 2012-01-15
Packaged: 2017-10-29 14:00:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/320689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jenny_Starseed/pseuds/Jenny_Starseed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Clara didn’t have to like alcohol to understand that Harry was one of those people who hated her life without it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Biscuits and Wine

Clara didn’t drink. John often asked her how she met Harry if she never drank. They met through a friend of a friend of a friend at a dinner party where she sipped her fizzy water while Harry flirted with her with Johnny Walker in hand. That should have given her a clue, who drinks Johnny Walker at a dinner party? But Harry was charming, disarming and lovely to look at.

Clara loathed the taste of alcohol unless it was 4% and diluted with a litre of soda water and five different types of juice. And even then, the 4% alcohol content gave her that heavy headed feeling that she felt uncomfortable with. She disliked how her voice suddenly got louder, her face got redder and the things she said got stupider. And her friends made fun of her. She even tried reading a book with a glass of wine and concluded that the two did not mix together. Words don’t compute when you’re under the influence, the words made little sense and her attention span went out the window. As far she knew, drinking was only good for socializing with friends, and most of her friends didn’t drink until she met Harry.

Oh Harry and her drinking friends. They wore silly heels, shiny tops and go to bars and pubs where they cannot hear each other talk. It was nights of random gesturing, screaming into each other ears and watching people giggle haplessly at...she doesn’t even know what. It was very boring to be the only sober one in a crowd of drunken people, it felt like everyone was telling a joke and she wasn’t in on it. And it was bloody expensive to get a proper sugary drink, that and the tipping and the cover charge. She wanted to save her four pounds for a decadent slice of cherry cheesecake and tea at her favourite coffee shop.

People ask her why and how did she end up with Harry? A party girl who should have outgrown the partying eight years ago? They didn’t know that Harry wasn’t always a party girl. When she was sober with a massive hangover, she was actually quite adorable. She never groaned about her headaches with her head in her hands. She would go out with Clara for that four pound cheesecake on a Sunday afternoon and they would quietly chat and watch the people passing by on the street. They shared a love of baking and their Christmas cakes and biscuits were heartily anticipated by their friends and family. They liked the same television shows and books; they laughed about the same things and agreed on most things politically and personally except for how to spend a weekend.

Harry was not a maudlin drunk; she drinks to forget her problems. She wanted to be a shiny person, a bold and proud person that fearlessly and aggressively kissed Clara in the middle of the street while hooligans sneered and shouted dirty jokes at them. It was when they were alone in the kitchen where Harry would quietly kiss Clara on top of her forehead over breakfast that Harry was at her most beautiful. It was over pricey cheesecake or raw cake batter that Harry would sometimes feel the need to speak about her problems that drove her to drink. Harry had low self-esteem, she’d always fret over sounding too arrogant or insensitive to people she loved, or if she said something terrible while she was drunk.

Harry thought her parents didn’t approve of her sexuality and lashed out at her family. Clara has met the Watsons and concluded that they were fine people, they were anything but homophobic. But they were an incredibly stoic bunch who didn’t speak of their problems and they couldn’t understand Harry’s constant need to speak hers.

The worst was her brother, John, the perfect boy wonder as Harry would put it; John, who was essentially a nice man but didn’t know how to handle Harry and her jealousy. Harry sometimes had a tinge of paranoia when it came to her family. She never felt anything she did was good enough for them, especially when compared to her brother, a straight doctor (what family isn’t proud when they have a doctor in the family?) who coped normally without alcohol. It didn’t help that he used to date the best girls that she fancied when she was fifteen. She could still remember the names of every one of them and the way they moaned and laughed when they kissed her brother.

Clara knew all this and that was why she always felt very protective towards Harry. Even after Harry tearfully left her, accusing Clara of faking her sympathy, because who can sympathize with a drunk when they hated the sight and smell of alcohol? She was tired of Clara’s bored and pitying looks when they went out to her favourite pubs and told Clara that it was a backhanded compliment to pity-fuck a drunken mess like her. Harry didn’t need Clara’s superior attitude towards her liking of drink. Her accusations were wild and contradictory, but they often were the few times Harry was an angry drunk. Harry drank half a pint of whisky to gather courage to lash out at Clara and to leave her with a hastily packed luggage in hand.

The next day, Harry initiated the proceedings for a legal separation.

They remained friends and occasionally they had lunch together. Harry was getting sick, she suspected that something was wrong with Harry’s liver and it was scaring her. Harry had recently lost her job and her last paycheque was to arrive in a week’s time. Clara feared the oncoming depression and self-flagellation and empty vodka bottles that accompanied it. It was the reason why she was having tea with John, organizing another intervention for Harry.

John was alarmed, he said he’d do what he could but he was weary of her emotional outbursts and the numerous times these interventions failed. His flat mate, Sherlock, was elegantly eavesdropping on the conversation while pretending to read a textbook on veterinary autonomy.

“Don’t be ridiculous, John,” deadpanned Sherlock, looking up from his textbook. “The whole point of an intervention is to be as snivelling and tearful as possible to emotionally blackmail your sister into going into rehabilitation. It’s what some people ridiculously call tough love, when really it’s horrifying and irritating the person into receiving help. ”

“That sounds even better, Sherlock,” John wearily replied.

“The fundamental problem with you is that you have given up on Harry and Mycroft has reliably informed me that family do not give up on addicted members. And it’s one of the few times I will concede that he is correct,” stated Sherlock.

There was a slight pause while Sherlock gave John a meaningful look that spoke of reminiscing of a regretful experience with the topic at hand. He returned to his autonomy textbook before saying ”Don’t be an idiot John, suck up your fears, write your letter, follow your interventionist’s instructions carefully and get counselling.”

A week later, Clara kissed Harry goodbye before John drove her to the rehabilitation clinic outside London. Clara hated the alcohol and longed for the day when Harry would kiss her without that sour tang of alcohol on her lips. She hated the bars, the throwing up and blackouts, the boring weekly nightlife of bars and pubs she had to endure every other weekend. She missed Harry and wanted quiet scenes of home-made biscuits and tea back. She wanted Harry to move back in with her, smelling of baked goods instead of wine.

John always asked Clara if she could explain Harry’s alcoholism. John loved his pints of lager, but he never could get his head around the appeal of drinking until you were sick on a nightly basis. Clara couldn’t tell you why people liked drinking; the bitter burn of it and the subsequent feelings of lightweight haziness that followed it were extremely unpleasant to her. But Clara didn’t have to like alcohol to understand that Harry was one of those people who hated her life without it. She understood that much and that was all that mattered.

**Author's Note:**

> Filled for a prompt asking for a fic about Clara and her inability to understand the appeal of drinking while having an alcoholic wife.
> 
> Unbeta-ed, so comments and (polite) concrit is welcomed. None of the characters are mine.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cheesecake and Tea](https://archiveofourown.org/works/802212) by [fennishjournal (Shimi)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shimi/pseuds/fennishjournal)




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